The Caribbean and parts of America just went through the strongest ever Atlantic Ocean hurricane on record. The hurricane left a terrifying path of destruction behind. Natural disasters such as Hurricane Irma can be a threat to not only human life, but also to telecommunication systems.

The Caribbean Island of Saint Martin was one of the hardest hit islands by the hurricane. The telecommunications networks went down and this made it extremely difficult for communities to communicate with each other. With the terrible happenings of Hurricane Irma and the Earthquake in Mexico many people got shut down from electricity and telecommunications networks and couldn’t be reached. But there is a system available that helps people get re-connected through wired or wireless technology and it can provide people with important information in an emergency. Being able to send a text message or a GPS location can be the difference between life and death in emergency situations such as hurricane Irma.

This system is called; Mesh Networking

The idea is to make telecommunication systems more distributed, so that even if centralised points fail you would still have working telecommunications in different areas. Mesh networks spread connectivity over a number of nodes¹ or connection points that communicate with each other. All mesh nodes cooperate in the distribution of data in the network and can be applied to both wired and wireless networks. The first mesh alike network was developed for military purposes.

Years ago, the military operating in warzones relied solely on line-of-sight radios and voice communications to be able to receive critical orders. But the signals were easily blocked by i.e. mountains, trees, buildings etc. So, once on the move they would outrun their communications pretty quickly. Then it was decided to invest in a wireless mesh network to solve the communication issues. The system was first used in 2009. Engineers developed a solution that relies on satellite communications, secure local area networks (LAN) and a point-of-presence vehicle. This serves as the designated network operations centre. This gave them the ability to send and receive digital command and control data and digital orders, no matter how rough or remote the area they’re located in or how far they’ve travelled from their command centres.

After the first version of a wireless mesh network there came a new system called Networking on the Move (NOTM). Then a mesh network called the Combat Service Support Automated Information Systems Interface (CAISI) arrived. It provides the army with high-speed and high capacity communications capabilities.

The Basics

A good reason for using mesh networks is that if one connection goes down, another one will take its place. A mesh network can potentially route around any kind of damage, if there is another path for the traffic to go. If at least one network point is connected to the internet, the signal can be shared. If there is no internet connection, a mesh network can still operate to provide emergency information and basic messaging services, like texts.

You can have a full or a partial mesh network. A full mesh topology is where each network node is connected directly to each of the others. In a partial mesh topology, some nodes are connected to all the others, but others are only connected to those nodes with which they exchange the most data.

 

 

 

 

 

A Mesh Network can send messages through either a flooding or a routing technique. With the routing technique the message is spread along a path by hopping from node to node until it reaches its destination. To ensure that all paths are available, the network must allow for continuous connections and must reconfigure itself around broken paths. This can be done by using self-healing algorithms such as Shortest Path Bridging². The self-healing part allows a routing-based network to still function when a node breaks down or when a connection becomes unreliable. It is mostly used in wireless situations but this concept is also suitable for wired networks.

Wired Mesh Networks

For wired networks Ethernet cables are mainly used to transfer data between connected PCs. If it’s a small network, a single router may be used to connect all the computers. For larger networks, multiple routers or switches that connect everything to each other are often involved

Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks or WMNs in short consist of mesh routers that collect and forward the traffic generated by mesh clients. Mesh routers are typically fixed and equipped with multiple radio interfaces. Mesh clients are mobile, and the data is forwarded by mesh routers to the intended destination. One or multiple mesh routers may have gateway functionality and provide connectivity to other networks such as internet access. In the WMNs, most of the flows are between the mesh client and the gateway; this is called internet traffic which is the common WMNs traffic as users need to access wired resources.

The biggest benefit of a wireless mesh network compared to a wired one is that it really is wireless. Most traditional “wireless” access points still need to be wired to the internet to broadcast their signal. In a wireless mesh network, there is only one node that needs to be physically wired to a network connection. That wired node then shares its internet connection wirelessly with all other nodes in its vicinity. Then these nodes share the connection wirelessly with the nodes closest to them. The more nodes the further the connections spreads, creating a wireless cloud of connectivity that can serve a small office or a big city.

 

A few wireless mesh network benefits:

• Fewer wires are used, which pushes down the costs. This is especially the case in large covered areas.
• The more nodes installed, the bigger and faster the wireless network will become.
• It’s convenient in settings where Ethernet wall connections are lacking, such as big outdoor venues, warehouses and transportation.
• Mesh networks are self-healing. The network automatically finds the fastest and most reliable paths to send data. Even if nodes are blocked or lose their signal.
• They are “self-configuring;” the network automatically incorporates a new node into the existing structure without needing any adjustments by a network administrator
• They are useful for Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) network configurations where wireless signals are intermittently blocked.
• Wireless mesh nodes are easy to install and uninstall. Making the network extremely adaptable and expandable as more or less coverage is needed.

 

Not only does a mesh network allow forward-operating units to project data and video communications into spaces with no networking infrastructure, but it can also be configured quickly and is considered more reliable because it can automatically bypass nodes that are operating sub optimally in favour of the quickest, most robust pathway.

 

¹Node: a node is either a redistribution point or a communication endpoint
²Shortest Path Bridging (SPB). It’s a computer networking technology intended to simplify the creation and configuration of networks, while enabling multipath routing. It is the replacement for the older spanning tree protocols: IEEE 802.1D, IEEE 802.1w, IEEE 802.1s.